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One of the neat subsystems out of the Gamemastery Guide is Influence, an extended system for social encounters designed to involve the whole party instead of just the face. I've started making some encounters, and wanted to clarify a few points and hopefully generate some fun brainstorming of ideas.
1) When are actions happening in relation to each other? Discovery checks are most useful if they are made before Influence checks so that the former can inform the approach of the latter. But since a round only allows each character a single action, that implies that doing so takes the entire round. That would mean that your Influencers would be rolling blind on round 1, and Discoveries would be reading this interaction and sharing this information at the top of round 2. This makes sense both narratively and mechanically, but it does make a significant difference in how hard these encounters are, especially short ones. It also means there is no point in using Discover on the last round.
2) The Discover activity reads: choose one of the following: You learn which skill that can Influence the NPC has the lowest DC (skipping any skills that you already know), one of the NPC’s personal biases, one of the NPC’s resistances, or one of the NPC’s weaknesses.
Seems straightforward enough, except that bold bit. Reading the rest of the Influence chapter, the only examples given of Biases either fall into the Resistance or Weakness buckets. The stat blocks have no room for biases as a separate thing. My assumption is this is just an oversight, but I wanted to check if anyone could think of a bias that wouldn't fall into either category and how you would implement it.
3) Anyone built interesting Influence encounters yet? I'm working on one with a hamadryad, which will be followed by an ancient green dragon and perhaps an alignment straddling phoenix. I've found most of it pretty easy, but I wouldn't mind coming up with a few more weaknesses and resistances and figuring out the Influence tiers is a little more challenging.
I love this thread idea, and have been thinking about this one myself. I put one influence based encounter together for my party and then they decided they wanted to run a longer campaign instead of the short adventure we were doing so we quit before I got to put it to test.
I was leaning into the idea of treating the social encounter round more like a combat round, in terms of having 3 actions, but have a Multiple Action Penalty for trying the same basic action or type of action 3 times in a round, so players would be encouraged to attempt to investigate the setting, or discover more about the participants before attempting social manipulation checks like intimidate or diplomacy.
What I really want to see though is a a community project develop around fleshing out influence encounters with Stat blocks for different kinds of scenarios fleshed out more for people to generally use, especially because the influence encounter stat block is pretty different from a general NPC stat block and requires some things that traditional stat blocks don't give you much of.
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I was leaning into the idea of treating the social encounter round more like a combat round, in terms of having 3 actions, but have a Multiple Action Penalty for trying the same basic action or type of action 3 times in a round, so players would be encouraged to attempt to investigate the setting, or discover more about the participants before attempting social manipulation checks like intimidate or diplomacy.
For what it's worth, this sort of mechanic isn't unprecedented. This is very similar to how the circus performance works in Extinction Curse.
I haven't had the chance to look over the influence encounter rules yet, but dotting this thread to come back to it when I do. :)
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If there's a craving for community examples, I'll post mine as I finish them.
My example was going to be from a vastly changed Strange Aeons book 1 remake, just to break in some new players with the fun differences of PF2 mechanics. I'll put what I had in spoilers below:
So there is a scene in the AP where the party encounters some guards at a barricade. The guards are worried the PCs might be doppelgängers and want the players to bring 3 dead doppelgängers to them to prove that they are not in league with them. I decided I wanted to try out the influence rules and make this social encounter more than a traditional "side-quest" plot hook.
The players will first encounter this social encounter as level 1 characters and it should be very difficult for them to earn many Influence points before getting a sense that they need to take some actions to ingratiate the guards too them. By the time they have recovered some doppelgänger bodies, they will also have reached level 2, so the encounter should be easier the second time around.
I created personalities for all 4 guards, personalities like:
Vaustin York: Guard Captain, (LN male human Varisian chapel guard, level 2) is a former orderly with 1 year of military experience. His family—minor nobles from Rozenport—procured him a position at Briarstone to keep him close to home. “Captain” York proves especially protective of Winter, his friend Tolman, and the groups’ children. Strongly dislikes Goblins.
Stat block:
Perception DC +8
Will DC +6
Discovery: Lore Warfare DC 12, other somewhat related lore DC 14, Perception DC 17, Society DC 15
Influence skills:
Low DC 15
Occultism (to convince him that the party knows more about doppelgängers than he does).
Lore Warfare
Medium DC 19
Intimidation
High DC 21
Deception (until convinced the party knows more about the creatures than he does, then drop to low DC)
Diplomacy
Resistances: York does not trust goblins and goblin characters interacting with him directly will have a -2 circumstance modifier to any social interaction checks made against him.
Weaknesses: Is looking for a strong authority figure to take control of the situation, as it is beginning to look hopeless to him.
The discovery skills are skills that I would tell PCs they could try to use to learn more about each of the Guards, as they relate to the kind of formal martial law situation the players find themselves in.
Each of the other three NPCs had similar (but slightly weaker stats) and different weaknesses and ressistances like:
Loves halflings and flattery, Hates Cruelty; Dislikes discussions about the occult, Doesn't believe they should be on guard duty; Hates being flattered, Doesn't trust York's authority.
The PCs were going to be able to make checks to get suspicions about each of the guards separately and have the back up guards occasionally make comments that might expose that they were not such a unified group.
The party could earn IP by winning specific guards to their side, by bringing in bodies of doppelgängers, or presenting that they had more knowledge of the situation than anyone else inside the chapel.
The could lose IP by taking up too much time trying to talk their way through or appearing to pit the guards against their captain, and would receive a warning anytime they lost 2 IP in one encounter, telling them they had to "bring back some bodies and then we can talk."
So how to choose a DC for this is pretty well explained. How long an influence encounter should be though? That is not. I don't see anything in the Influence or Victory Points sections on how many rounds you should give the players to hit their benchmarks for a baseline difficulty. So I'm gonna try and extrapolate it:
Our example, Danphy Mollwether, gives 3 rounds. Assuming a standard party of 4, that's a total of 12 actions. He also has 3 IP thresholds: 4, 6, and 8.
To hit 4, 1 in 3 of the party actions must accumulate an IP. To hit 6, half of the actions must get an IP. And to get 8 IP, two thirds of the actions must earn an IP point.
Let's set those ratios as our baseline. So if I wanted to run an encounter for 5 characters, I'd be looking at 15 actions to spend. I'd adjust my IP values to match: 5, 7 or 8, and 10.
Similarly, if I wanted to run a longer encounter for those 5 players, I might go for 6 rounds. 30 actions to use might mean I'd go for 10, 15, and 20 as my IP thresholds. Having that higher number means I could also build in a 5 and a 25 if I wanted to, which might be neat. Though I suppose the original example could have done 2,4,6,8, 10.
I think when determining the thresholds, you should probably just decide how many interesting and distinct outcomes there are and map it out from there.
You can also adjust the number of rounds or the IP thresholds to toggle the difficulty higher or lower... but we already have a good dial to use for difficulty: the level of the NPC/encounter. For simplicity's sake, I think I'd stick to the above ratios for the number of rounds and IP thresholds.
I think when determining the thresholds, you should probably just decide how many interesting and distinct outcomes there are and map it out from there.You can also adjust the number of rounds or the IP thresholds to toggle the difficulty higher or lower... but we already have a good dial to use for difficulty: the level of the NPC/encounter. For simplicity's sake, I think I'd stick to the above ratios for the number of rounds and IP thresholds.
I think this is really key. It is important to come up with more than just yes/no or pass/fail outcomes for influence encounters or it will feel like you might have well just employ a single skill check/challenge with a fail forward mechanic.
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Absolutely. And once you have your IP to round ration figured out, coming up the thresholds is pretty fun and easy. I just came up with mine in the time between these last posts and finished my hamadryad. She's a level 13 creature against a 14th level group of 5, and I want to make it a 6 round endeavor. Call it an hour and a half.
UNCOMMON CG MEDIUM FEY NYMPH PLANT
Hamadryad Crusader
Perception +25, Nymph’s Beauty: Creatures must succeed at a DC 30 will save at the start of every round or take a -2 penalty to all checks until the next round.
Will +24
Discovery DC 26 Forest Lore or Fey Lore, DC 29 Nature, DC 31 Perception
Influence Skills DC 29 Crafting (offering to immortalize her in an art piece and showing off an item you have crafted) DC 30 Performance, DC 32 Survival (sharing how to navigate the Darkblight) DC 34 Diplomacy, DC 35 Deception, DC 39 Intimidation
Influence 5: Buramestia demands the party leave this area of the Fangwood immediately. Refusing either means fighting Buramestia and her cohorts or having to retreat and come back on a second foray.
Influence 10: Buramestia refuses to listen to the party, but doesn’t take any action against them. She will later be confronted as an enemy with the Blighted template (see area G5.)
Influence 15: Buramestia agrees to leave destroying the Darkblight to the party so as to not risk adding to the blighted army should she be captured.
Influence 20: As 15, and Buramestia offers each party member a choice of her Fey Boon (use the boon of a normal dryad) or the boon of one her soldiers.
Influence 25: As 15 and 20, and Barmestia offers one PC her inspiration.
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Resistances Buramestia and her party are uncomfortable around cold iron and fire. Mentioning using either increases the DC of a check by 2. Actually showing off these traits increases the DC by 5 and loses one IP.
Weaknesses Like most nymph queens, Buramestia is tied to her homeland. Appealing to the wellbeing of her land should she fall to the Darkblight reduces the DC of all influence checks by 2 for this round.
Background Fey creatures from across Avistan fear and rage against the blight that corrupts the Fangwood. Contingents of crusading fey frequently make their way to the forest to attempt rescue of their blighted kin, fight back the forces of corruption, and learn about potential defenses should the Darkblight spread to their corners of the world. In most cases, however, these brave fey succumb to the blight themselves and bolster Naphexi’s army. The PCs encounter a party of fey crusaders, led by the hamadryad (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 4 148) Buramestia, who has brought her most noble warriors—three satyrs, three huldras (Bestiary 4 151), two nymphs, two pixies, and two treants—all the way from Razmiran to combat the Darkblight. She is untrusting of humanoids after a lifetime of conflict with them, and it takes strong diplomacy on the PCs’ part to convince her they have good intentions.
Appearance This regal woman exhibits the grace and pride of the forest’s most ancient trees.
Personality Brave, Imperious, Proud, Wary
Penalty Antagonizing Buramestia with threats or insults causes her to shorten the meeting to 5 rounds.
Next up will be an ancient green dragon... a much more difficult encounter, but probably a shorter one and one where even lower IP thresholds will still be sufficient to avoid disaster.
1) When are actions happening in relation to each other? Discovery checks are most useful if they are made before Influence checks so that the former can inform the approach of the latter. But since a round only allows each character a single action, that implies that doing so takes the entire round. That would mean that your Influencers would be rolling blind on round 1, and Discoveries would be reading this interaction and sharing this information at the top of round 2. This makes sense both narratively and mechanically, but it does make a significant difference in how hard these encounters are, especially short ones. It also means there is no point in using Discover on the last round.
It's an encounter, so why not run in initiative? You can even give NPCs actions such as bringing up particular topics of conversation or moving about the party to form different groups.
Simultaneous play is fine, but you can add depth and make some actions a little better if you give them a sort of order.
2) The Discover activity reads: choose one of the following: You learn which skill that can Influence the NPC has the lowest DC (skipping any skills that you already know), one of the NPC’s personal biases, one of the NPC’s resistances, or one of the NPC’s weaknesses.
Seems straightforward enough, except that bold bit. Reading the rest of the Influence chapter, the only examples given of Biases either fall into the Resistance or Weakness buckets. The stat blocks have no room for biases as a separate thing. My assumption is this is just an oversight, but I wanted to check if anyone could think of a bias that wouldn't fall into either category and how you would implement it.
Yeah, biases sounded like an earlier version of resistances or weaknesses to me. But, you could also give information on Personality and/or possible Penalties. In the example stat block, you could confirm to the players that Mr. Mollwether is an impatient man and skeptical and he's liable to cut a meeting short if he feels like the PCs are wasting his time.
I hope you post more of your work! I'll probably add an influence encounter to a Deep Background adventure I'm tinkering with and another example will be helpful.
It's an encounter, so why not run in initiative? You can even give NPCs actions such as bringing up particular topics of conversation or moving about the party to form different groups.
Simultaneous play is fine, but you can add depth and make some actions a little better if you give them a sort of order.
I toyed with this idea, but the problem is that unless I give players a reason not (such as some sort of "hostile" action taken by the NPC) then they will just delay their turns to all act after the Discover characters anyway. I mean, I could lock them into that initiative order, but at that point I am not sure it is worth using initiative. You would wind up punishing the Influencers if they roll higher than the Discoverers, for example.
I've heard there are people that use initiative for just about everything-- social encounters, explorating an empty room, etc. I've always thought that sounded tedious but maybe that's a failure of imagination on my part.
Anyway, a dragon!
UNCOMMON LE GARAGANTUAN AMPHIBIOUS DRAGON
Ancient Green Dragon Scholar
Perception +30
Will +32, Other creatures must save against the dragon’s Frightful Presence at the start of every round, and the Frightened penalty applies to any checks made that round.
Discovery DC 31 Dragon Lore, DC 34 Arcana, DC 36 Perception
Influence Skills DC 32 Darkblight Lore, DC 38 Occultism, DC 40 Arcana, DC 40 Deception, DC 41 Society, DC 42 Intimidation, DC 42 Diplomacy, DC 45 Nature
Influence 5: Ostryllax decides the party are dumb enough to get her into trouble if she allows them further into the Darkblight and attacks.
Influence 10: Ostryllax decides the party can go on their merry way.
Influence 15: As 10, and she tells the party to watch out for Naphexi, the Bandersnatch, and the Jubjub Bird, and that Arlantia can’t replace those pets as easily as her fey or demons.
Influence 20: As 15, and Ostryllax warns the party to watch out for a few spells Naphexi favors, specifically including her favoring negative energy effects.
Influence 25: As 15, and Ostryllax gives the party a major ring of acid resistance.
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Resistances Green Dragons do not suffer fools. Anyone trying to make an Influence check with a skill they are less than an expert in takes a -2 penalty on the check. In addition, Intimidation checks must not threaten Ostryllax herself but rather be targeted towards mutual enemies or it takes a -5 penalty.
Weaknesses Ostryllax finds the idea of Arlantia being taken down appealing, and anyone claiming they will do so lowers the DC of the relevant Influence check by 2. Also, Ostryllax’s natural obsession with learning means anyone plying her with lore of a lost civilization or lost artifact lowers the DC of a Society or Arcana check by 5. To do so, they must either be trained in a relevant Lore skill, such as Thassilonian Lore, or have specifically learned the relevant information over the course of their campaign.
Background Among Arlantia’s many nonblighted minions is the ancient green dragon Ostryllax, who serves the fey queen reluctantly but loyally. Initially, Ostryllax fought back against Arlantia and the Darkblight as they began encroaching on her territory, but she soon found herself overwhelmed—and eventually fascinated by the strange infestation that was transforming the Fangwood into something entirely new. She now assists Arlantia in carrying out her schemes in exchange for protection from the Darkblight and permission to conduct her own research into the infestation so long as doing so does not interfere with Arlantia operations
Personality Articulate, Curious, Scholarly, Proud, Spiteful
Penalty If the party ends a round with Influence Points below 0, Ostryllax immediately ends discussions and attacks.
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One thing I'm discovering as I do this is it is a really nice way to flesh out the personality and possible reactions an NPC might have. The text in "Background" was all I really had as a starting point for either stat block. I fleshed that out by looking at the bestiary both for flavor and specific skills the creature favored, plus how their special abilities or properties normally used in combat could effect a social event. And then that all leads to questions about what how a specific skill check actually looks in conversation.
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Some key takeaways from influence encounters in PFS1/SFS scenarios;
- It's not enough to list skills that can be used to influence NPCs. It's vital that there is actually something to talk about. Give each NPC some nuggets of information that they may share during discussions, both when the PCs are successful but also when they're unsuccessful. These nuggets can be the NPC bringing up something that concerns them, or that they know about other NPCs in the scene, or it can be their perspective on the bigger plot that the PCs were working on. One of the best examples is The Hellknight's Feast where the NPCs all have some agendas and biases, and the consequences of that night go on to shape the PFS1 season 5 metaplot. Another take on this is that an influence encounter could also be a bit of a library skill challenge instead, where the players are pumping the NPCs for information at the same time as they're trying to impress them.
- Discovery shouldn't just be a weird chore where you make Sense Motive (or whatever) checks. It's done a little better in SFS Siege of Civility where the initial Culture check before going to the meeting allows the players to learn a couple of the influence skills of the participants beforehand. That avoids an awkward first round where everyone is firing blind. Another way to make Discovery better is for NPCs to offer up that information about themselves or other NPCs as a "reward" when you successfully influence them. (All of this in addition to the regular checks, just to make it more varied.)
- Like say, a theatre play, a big influence encounter should have acts and scenes. A discussion with an individual is a scene, while everyone getting a turn is an act. But the acts shouldn't all be the same. You want a rise and fall of story. In particular, it's good to have Interludes, where you do something else than words words words. Siege of Civility did it very explicitly by having an exhibition fight in the middle of it. It was a relatively easy fight, but it was in a novel arena, and viewed by the NPC guests; doing well in the fight also influences the negotiations afterwards. It's also done in The Hellknight's Feast, but there the PCs get called in to investigate various odd noises in the basement etcetera, and the whole setup is to deal with problems behind the curtain without the guests becoming alarmed. In both cases, the interludes also relate to the main influence plot, and they give a change of pace.
- Clear stakes. I keep bringing up The Hellknight's Feast because it's got such a clear premise. The PCs are here to get Absalom's high and mighty powerbrokers to invest in the Pathfinders' excursion into the Worldwound. That's a pretty real goal, you can argue about why it's important, if it's feasible, why any of these people would be interested in it. This sets the scenario apart from others where the whole setup seems to be that the VC says "go in there and give us a good name" and you basically have to make small talk about nothing to give a good impression. There's no larger topic of discussion involved. I personally really don't like that. I'm introverted enough that I find just chatting up strangers with small talk just for the sake of small talk excruciating. But if I need something particular and can come up with an argument about why these people should join in, I can talk to strangers. (Note also how this relates to NPCs actually having information to share, as mentioned above.)
I think giving everyone the opportunity to "Discover" before the encounter begins is probably a good idea, but I'd take a page from that Starfinder scenario and couch it as a Recall Knowledge check to see what they already happen to know about the creature. That might call for fleshing out the stat block a little more, since there will be more opportunities to learn things. But the DC would probably wind up being higher on Recall Knowledge than normal Discovery. To use an above example, an acient green dragon is DC 38 Arcana to identify, but you can make a DC 34 Arcana to Discover during the encounter. So that might be all right.
I also agree having an actual conversation and role-playing is better than just rolling skill checks. It is probably also worth considering how the information is actually Discovered-- it might feel more organic to for the GM to pick a clue that flows from the conversation or skill being rolled, rather than just letting the players pick from the menu as written. For example, perhaps one could make a Medicine check to notice a scar on a person's wrist they absentmindedly rub when a particular battle is mentioned, and the GM would then tell the player that this person probably participated in this battle and was wounded there.
Do folks think there should be a cumulative penalty for using the same skill check more than once on the same creature? Say, raising the DC to Influence for a particular skill by 2 after every use? It seems like someone whose best skill works well will just spam it, and that is less interesting. Or maybe the DC should increase for that skill only for that PC so the others feel encouraged to participate.
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I've done quite a few, since converting War for the Crown, and gradually aligned with the GMG (with one exception: most of my encounters are set in the "high society" context and thus use a more relaxed Influence success table, granting PCs 3/2/1/0 influence points each action. I did not want to recalculate everything so I just said it's an alternate track).
One very important note: some players had Diplomacy skill feats and wondered if they interacted in any way. Rather than saying no, I wrote the interactions out.
Hobnobber allows characters to roll two Discoveries in one social turn.
Glad-hand allows a single Diplomacy check with -5 penalty upon meeting a new NPC - critical failures on Glad Hand checks do not trigger negative consequences.
Group Impression allows to Influence multiple NPCs at the same time, provided they are in the same area and the character opts to use Diplomacy.
There's plenty of ways to stimulate roleplay, especially if you use the Strengths and Weaknesses a lot, as they indicate to players how to frame the conversation to get the best outcome. As for biases they're very present in WftC (for example, Baron Okerra is biased towards Lawful characters, and they get a +2 to all their checks against him).
I've done quite a few, since converting War for the Crown, and gradually aligned with the GMG (with one exception: most of my encounters are set in the "high society" context and thus use a more relaxed Influence success table, granting PCs 3/2/1/0 influence points each action. I did not want to recalculate everything so I just said it's an alternate track).
One very important note: some players had Diplomacy skill feats and wondered if they interacted in any way. Rather than saying no, I wrote the interactions out.
Hobnobber allows characters to roll two Discoveries in one social turn.
Glad-hand allows a single Diplomacy check with -5 penalty upon meeting a new NPC - critical failures on Glad Hand checks do not trigger negative consequences.
Group Impression allows to Influence multiple NPCs at the same time, provided they are in the same area and the character opts to use Diplomacy.There's plenty of ways to stimulate roleplay, especially if you use the Strengths and Weaknesses a lot, as they indicate to players how to frame the conversation to get the best outcome. As for biases they're very present in WftC (for example, Baron Okerra is biased towards Lawful characters, and they get a +2 to all their checks against him).
Damn, that's great stuff on those skill feats. Definitely using that. Might turn Group Impression into a flat bonus to Diplomacy checks because my encounter will be addressing a dryad queen accompanied by her subjects. The subjects don't need to be Influenced per se but it seems like getting the crowd on your side should do something.
I dunno why I didn't directly message you about this, of course WotC would have lots of this.
How do folks feel about having the same skill be used for both Discovery and Influence? I realized I had Nature as a Discovery skill for the Hamadryad but not Influence, which makes a certain amount of sense for mechanical balance but feels a little weird. I put arcana in both categories on the dragon, but I could pull that from the Influence block too I suppose. She's got a ton of skills to Influence with anyway.
I am hoping we will see a whole lot more examples of this, and ways to utilize skill feats in influence encounters in the next AP.
As far as being able to use the same skill for discovery and influence, I don't think it is really that big of a problem as long as it is not the only one, and it doesn't become too obvious an "always option," which can be a danger with nature.
As far as increasing the DCs with multiple checks, usually with skill challenges, I much prefer to have critical failure cause a negative reaction and to allow players to make multiple rolls for it, rather than discouraging them from even trying, which is what increasing penalties can do.
However, with social challenges, I usually expect the player to come up with a different thing to be doing with the same skill, rather than just say, "I try diplomacy again."
For example, I would only increase the DC of gaining an influence point from the same NPC with 2 diplomacy checks if the player didn't change the subject or try a different approach to their argument.
So how to choose a DC for this is pretty well explained. How long an influence encounter should be though? That is not. I don't see anything in the Influence or Victory Points sections on how many rounds you should give the players to hit their benchmarks for a baseline difficulty. So I'm gonna try and extrapolate it:
Our example, Danphy Mollwether, gives 3 rounds. Assuming a standard party of 4, that's a total of 12 actions. He also has 3 IP thresholds: 4, 6, and 8.
To hit 4, 1 in 3 of the party actions must accumulate an IP. To hit 6, half of the actions must get an IP. And to get 8 IP, two thirds of the actions must earn an IP point.
Let's set those ratios as our baseline. So if I wanted to run an encounter for 5 characters, I'd be looking at 15 actions to spend. I'd adjust my IP values to match: 5, 7 or 8, and 10.
Similarly, if I wanted to run a longer encounter for those 5 players, I might go for 6 rounds. 30 actions to use might mean I'd go for 10, 15, and 20 as my IP thresholds. Having that higher number means I could also build in a 5 and a 25 if I wanted to, which might be neat. Though I suppose the original example could have done 2,4,6,8, 10.
I think when determining the thresholds, you should probably just decide how many interesting and distinct outcomes there are and map it out from there.
You can also adjust the number of rounds or the IP thresholds to toggle the difficulty higher or lower... but we already have a good dial to use for difficulty: the level of the NPC/encounter. For simplicity's sake, I think I'd stick to the above ratios for the number of rounds and IP thresholds.
One thing I would point out just based on the math: The more actions you allow, the closer the final results will trend to the average. So for a longer encounter, the party will very likely get the moderate success result. For shorter encounters it will be more swingy - more probability for the higher or lower outcomes.
Examples with your numbers: Let's average things for the sake of my own sanity and just say that the party has even odds for success on things. So 50% chance of success.
And I am thinking Binomial Probability for calculating this.
The 3 round (12 action) encounter with targets of 4, 6, and 8: At 50% success rates, the party would expect to get 6 points. Calculating it with probability .5, number of trials 12, and expected successes 6: we have a 61% chance of getting the 6 points we need (not the 50% you were expecting - gotta love discrete math). If we change to the 8 points that the party is hoping for, they have a 19% chance to get that.
Changing to the 6 rounds (30 actions) version with thresholds of 10, 15, and 20: Still the 50% success rate for each individual action. Calculating with probability .5, number of trials 30, and expected successes 15: now getting 57% to get at least 15 points. But to get 20 successes only has a 4.9% chance. Much lower opportunity to get the higher success level for the encounter overall.
So how to choose a DC for this is pretty well explained. How long an influence encounter should be though? That is not. I don't see anything in the Influence or Victory Points sections on how many rounds you should give the players to hit their benchmarks for a baseline difficulty. So I'm gonna try and extrapolate it:
Our example, Danphy Mollwether, gives 3 rounds. Assuming a standard party of 4, that's a total of 12 actions. He also has 3 IP thresholds: 4, 6, and 8.
To hit 4, 1 in 3 of the party actions must accumulate an IP. To hit 6, half of the actions must get an IP. And to get 8 IP, two thirds of the actions must earn an IP point.
Let's set those ratios as our baseline. So if I wanted to run an encounter for 5 characters, I'd be looking at 15 actions to spend. I'd adjust my IP values to match: 5, 7 or 8, and 10.
Similarly, if I wanted to run a longer encounter for those 5 players, I might go for 6 rounds. 30 actions to use might mean I'd go for 10, 15, and 20 as my IP thresholds. Having that higher number means I could also build in a 5 and a 25 if I wanted to, which might be neat. Though I suppose the original example could have done 2,4,6,8, 10.
I think when determining the thresholds, you should probably just decide how many interesting and distinct outcomes there are and map it out from there.
You can also adjust the number of rounds or the IP thresholds to toggle the difficulty higher or lower... but we already have a good dial to use for difficulty: the level of the NPC/encounter. For simplicity's sake, I think I'd stick to the above ratios for the number of rounds and IP thresholds.
One thing I would point out just based on the math: The more actions you allow, the closer the final results will trend to the average. So for a longer encounter, the party will very likely get the moderate success result. For shorter encounters it will be more swingy - more probability for the higher or lower outcomes.
Examples with your numbers: Let's...
That's a very helpful thing to keep in mind. I think I'm cool with trending to the average for the two encounters above, largely because they are "extra" encounters These aren't in the AP I'm running, which means that the rewards they carry are also not factored into the adventure's expected treasure.
Yeah, I've had to alter a few encounters for time due to how I calculate successes. On the other hand, I tend to stick to a DC based on the NPC level and alter circumstances around.
For example, my party has a loooong series of Influences at lv4, and then once again at lv7. The DCs are very similar, but while the first is a major gala with plenty of time (2 days!) to talk to everyone and no real complication, the other is a series of daily meetings with limited interactions and opponents trying to discredit them, so if they want to do any meaningful progress they'll need to crit succeed more often than not.
Think +13ish on a DC17.
I love getting people in tricky situations with challenges they can just breeze through. Comes from years of PF1 I suppose.
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Ran the Green Dragon encounter last night. I think folks enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I developed a really severe headache at the tail end of the session and my role-playing fell off quite a bit in the last couple rounds.
Sure enough, as breithauptclan predicted the 6 round encounter ended at a distinctly average point-- 13 IP. Good enough for them to avoid being attacked by the dragon but not to gain information or treasure to directly assist their mission. But this was a a severe challenge for them, so that's a pretty good result. I also effectively gave them a 6th party member because they had recently acquired an intelligent magic item whose skill set was extremely applicable.
I also confirmed I should come up with a more thorough statblock for a longer encounter. Using what I'd posted above, I was having to improvise new weaknesses as I went. I suppose if the GMG example was for 12 actions, I should have had 3x the data for 36 actions.
Next week I'll try to run the much lower level level hamadryad and see if my party can get above average. Their intelligent item won't have the relevant skills this time. And I might shorten the length of the encounter down to 3 rounds. The hamadryad seems like she wouldn't be as interested as the green dragon was, and it also lightens my workload.
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I think in the backend of your influence encounter, you should plug in some of the ideas of the library rules: as you talk more with each NPC, they volunteer new information, and with that new information you might get new topics of discussion and weaknesses to exploit on that, or another, NPC.
For example, when you get enough influence with the high priest, he gives you his unvarnished opinion of the archmage, which gives you some leverage on the archmage (and may make you realize that he's actually a sinister bastard).
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I think in the backend of your influence encounter, you should plug in some of the ideas of the library rules: as you talk more with each NPC, they volunteer new information, and with that new information you might get new topics of discussion and weaknesses to exploit on that, or another, NPC.
For example, when you get enough influence with the high priest, he gives you his unvarnished opinion of the archmage, which gives you some leverage on the archmage (and may make you realize that he's actually a sinister bastard).
Yeah, I was endeavoring to do that. I wasn't always successful at coming up with that stuff on the fly, especially with the headache, and the interaction with that information and Discover checks is a little awkward. But that's all the more reason to have a more robust stat block so you have information to draw from and can pick from what seems appropriate.
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Yeah I mostly meant, that's a way to keep things interesting if you're aiming for a 6-rounds influence scene.
I feel like 5-6 rounds is about the sweet spot for a major, somewhat predictable-outcome scene. Take too long, and just becomes too much rote. Too short and it's a bit janky.
Longer than that is possible but you need to intersperse multiple intermezzos (see Hellknight's Feast for a good demonstration). Shorter means that the outcome is more random, so that only works if your plot can handle that wildness - you need fail-forward plot options if they crash and burn, and extra content if they steamroll it.
A thing to consider is how much of an idea you give the players of how many rounds they're getting. Especially when you add more strategic options. For example, if the PCs need to absolutely convince the king, but ideally more people. If they know they have a long scene, they can try to build support from the bishop and the chancellor first to help with the king. But if they don't have all that long, they may need to start with the king first to ensure they at least get that if nothing else.
I think telling people when it's about halftime is a good habit shown in PFS/SFS scenarios. They also tend to have you meet with your boss at halftime to discuss strategy and take stock, figure out priorities for the remaining time.